Even of Alexander himself it is related that on his death-bed he caused his admiral, Nearchus, to sit by his side, and found consolation in listening to the adventures of that sailor--the story of his voyage from the Indus up the Persian Gulf.

The conqueror had seen with astonishment the ebbing and flowing of the tides.

He had built ships for the exploration of the Caspian, supposing that it and the Black Sea might be gulfs of a great ocean, such as Nearchus had discovered the Persian and Red Seas to be.

He had formed a resolution that his fleet should attempt the circumnavigation of Africa, and come into the Mediterranean through the Pillars of Hercules--a feat which, it was affirmed, had once been accomplished by the Pharaohs.
INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF PERSIA.

Not only her greatest soldiers, but also her greatest philosophers, found in the conquered empire much that might excite the admiration of Greece.